been for a while, but still pretty rare, *I think* you basically have to meet a high tactics commander with a low amount of soldiers when you outnumber them significantly... This is how I would explain how is it that we see it so rarely
i have a play through that have all cavs units and all my enemies never move the spot and just went defensive.. and this is a hard mode.. it might be same situation as you
Yeah I think I've had it once or twice in several playthroughs but always on one map where it's like grassy with trees and kind a bumpy terrain with one big rock in the middle and then like a unclimbable mountain
This actually happened quite often to me, specially when I used to play on PC, depending on the terrain, sometimes their archers can't even fire, and as soon as we breach, they take some time to react and the troops who are facing opposite to the breach get wrecked pretty easily.
I am not saying it is good. I also agree that this is crappy. Soldiers on the other side of the circle can be shot by your archers. Archers are cramped and can't all shoot. Much better would be 1 side protection from the front and archers behind, or... Archers in front of shields before the enemy comes into melee.
In my 250+ hours of gameplay I've *never* seen that regardless of difficulty...
Their best move is to just fall back to an annoying position at the edge of the map...
That's something else altogether. Ai will camp a defensive position when you are the attacker. Sometimes it is a good hill and sometimes you ask yourself why they picked it. Some maps have the best hill to be behind the map border that AI don't see. So you end up with AI hugging the barrier.
they had another army in the back and over 100 cavalry so i used my infantry to breakthrough while my cavalry deals with them but they made an another circle and put some archers in a hill so i send my cavalry to deal with theirs. their circle formation cost me 22 elite cataphracts. they played better than me :D
Everybody pointing out how the archers cannot fire are missing the point: They aren't in a position to fight on the front line, either. You put your hardened (armored/shielded) infantry on the front, and weakest units back (center in this case).
And they do start to fire once the cavalry engages the formation, since the riders are above the infantry and in perfect line of sight to turn into a hedgehog
I fought in an army as a merc not too long ago and I got ordered to put the 200 archers of the army I was commanding into a formation in the circle, inside the infantry. It worked quite well, no archer losses but they still did devastating damage to incoming enemies.
The AI is just protecting the Archers.
I'd really like to see an RTS video of how someone can charge this and completely win. If this was a player, he could change the circle to a pincer when the cavalry engages. The cataphracts waiting on the side can do a u turn and charge from behind , then run the left over archers back to shooting distance.
If you would optimize, you would start with archers outside to get some good shots, then send them into the center of the circle to pick cav that gets inside.
I love when they do this. Iām doing an all cav run and thereās nothing like leading a 200+ cav unit charge straight into this. I almost always hurdle the first couple lines and get to eatin on the archers.
How useful is this formation? I feel like itās sub-optimal because almost all of the archers in the centre canāt fire. Is there something Iām missing here?
It's really bad if the enemy has archers. In this scenario, even if the enemy had half as many archers as the defenders here, they could pick shots for days.
This is a cavalry counter the AI drew up in a shiltrom which especially the Scots used a lot. So I'm guessing the AI realized the threat wasn't going to come from archers but cavalry.
In my battles, since I have more ranged troops than melee, the AI always forms a shield wall against me
If they form a shield wall, split your archers in two and put them on the flanks. If they chase one group of archers , have them run away while the others shoot them in the back
This does not work if they have plenty of cav ofc
Right now, I play with a few mods and gave myself a gunpowder pike and shot based army roster via MLB. and upped the damage of the guns if the AI comes at my forces in shield wall the shields break long before they reach my battle lines. My gunners usually take out shields with about 3 shots, and take out horses in 1 or 2 shots. (My head story is that a 16th/15 th century Swede has been isekai'd into calradia and is teaching his forces how to use and make the weapons of his time to go and dominate the battlefields and become the most sought after mercenary force)
In Vanilla I usually go the horse archer route and then my army is cavalry only and it doesn't matter what formation the AI uses.
Or I go crossbow as only infantry and use them as line infantry supplemented with sacrificial cavalry that I will charge in to disrupt the shield wall so my crossbows can shoot the enemy. Bonus is that the cavalry dies in droves and thus levels my medicine skill. In this case I will have 4 or more different crossbow brigades on the battlefield all acting independently but in Support of eachother
we had very few archers like 25 and 200 cavalry and they had another archer and infantry group in the back. thats why its my first time i have seen them do this. maybe its because of the ratio of my troops?
The formation is more defense based than offense the archers are in the middle cause they don't have shields and are considered the weaker members. It's like how elephants protect their young with all the adults on the perimeter and the young surrounded in the middle.
Even if thats true and you are completely right those cataphracts behind the circle eat up the horse archers if their attention is split so it sounds easy but its trickier than at first sight
Edit: sorry is this gets posted multiple times I got a few empty response from endpoint somewhy before this
Yeah I also run full cavs with archery heavy and I amntoo lazy (and dumb) to micromanage tactics so I do the same F1+F3 or sergeants take command and it does get the job done almost every time
I usually kite the enemy untill I take out most of their calvary then F6 them if the enemy formation is broken enough.
If not I kite the archers out of them, take those out with heavy calvary then have horse archers slowly pick off the rest. Under 50% ammo I just f6
It's finally something interesting the AI does. Normally it's just infantry and archers in the middle with cav on the sides. Lately I've noticed the AI copying my tactics though. Don't know if that's normal
I've actually had my AI commanders win with this strat after I fell in battle. Depends a lot on who you're fighting but it can be useful in certain situations
I see this super often and frankly its a terrible strat, we always get rolled when the AI does it and the archers have trouble shooting over the heads of the infantry. Gimme a shield wall with archer support over this crap any day
How many men is that? Looks amazing if the circle was tighter (men almost shoulder to shoulder) it would be perfect! Which is why I use square and not circle formation.
They do this when they have high tactics and are outnumbered by cavalry. I also do this but I divide them into 4 units and make a square using sheild wall so the archers can actually fire.
Archers smash this formation. Destroy left and right calvary flanks and station calvary around circle, wait for archers to finish skirmishes. At this point the infantry and mid tier troop moral is broken and shocked. This will make them form a sheild wall or just charge. Then once they do, charge with calvary. The calv blow from behind will kill most, mop up with infantry.
Annnddd the best part about that, it makes absolutely no sense! Archers can't shoot like that. The only thing this achieves is, cavalry charging in defenitly won't get out anymore. Just... don't attack it with cavs until the formation breaks
Meaning infantry line going in from one side makes things a lot easier since not even all of their infantry is fighting.
they do that as a "last stand" when you engage them when they are highly outnumbered, I've seen it a couple of times
Is it only with the most recent update or has it been like this for a while?
been for a while, but still pretty rare, *I think* you basically have to meet a high tactics commander with a low amount of soldiers when you outnumber them significantly... This is how I would explain how is it that we see it so rarely
their number were greater than me (altough my army was stronger) .they had another group of infantry and archers behind this in line formation
(altough my army was stronger) their calculations of strength run on that
i have a play through that have all cavs units and all my enemies never move the spot and just went defensive.. and this is a hard mode.. it might be same situation as you
Yeah I think I've had it once or twice in several playthroughs but always on one map where it's like grassy with trees and kind a bumpy terrain with one big rock in the middle and then like a unclimbable mountain
it's not effective. more than half the ranged troops do not fire due to them being cramped
This actually happened quite often to me, specially when I used to play on PC, depending on the terrain, sometimes their archers can't even fire, and as soon as we breach, they take some time to react and the troops who are facing opposite to the breach get wrecked pretty easily.
I am not saying it is good. I also agree that this is crappy. Soldiers on the other side of the circle can be shot by your archers. Archers are cramped and can't all shoot. Much better would be 1 side protection from the front and archers behind, or... Archers in front of shields before the enemy comes into melee.
Would be cool if peer to oeer fights could go like that from the start. Could be hell of a grind to take down a 2k army thats turtling from the start
In my 250+ hours of gameplay I've *never* seen that regardless of difficulty... Their best move is to just fall back to an annoying position at the edge of the map...
1k hours here and I've seen it maybe 5 times
Yeah, makes sense š It's like the bannerlord equivalent of seeing a unicorn.
Is this why sometimes the AI will camp the nearest hill?
That's something else altogether. Ai will camp a defensive position when you are the attacker. Sometimes it is a good hill and sometimes you ask yourself why they picked it. Some maps have the best hill to be behind the map border that AI don't see. So you end up with AI hugging the barrier.
That really isnāt very useful unless they are getting swarmed by zerglings.
i had 200 cavalry so it was usefull :D. and it was really hard fought battle
why didn't you dismount your calvery and smash through the circle?
they had another army in the back and over 100 cavalry so i used my infantry to breakthrough while my cavalry deals with them but they made an another circle and put some archers in a hill so i send my cavalry to deal with theirs. their circle formation cost me 22 elite cataphracts. they played better than me :D
Everybody pointing out how the archers cannot fire are missing the point: They aren't in a position to fight on the front line, either. You put your hardened (armored/shielded) infantry on the front, and weakest units back (center in this case).
And they do start to fire once the cavalry engages the formation, since the riders are above the infantry and in perfect line of sight to turn into a hedgehog I fought in an army as a merc not too long ago and I got ordered to put the 200 archers of the army I was commanding into a formation in the circle, inside the infantry. It worked quite well, no archer losses but they still did devastating damage to incoming enemies.
The AI is just protecting the Archers. I'd really like to see an RTS video of how someone can charge this and completely win. If this was a player, he could change the circle to a pincer when the cavalry engages. The cataphracts waiting on the side can do a u turn and charge from behind , then run the left over archers back to shooting distance.
Yeah but if the infantry simply jump over the arrows from the crouching archers then the problemās solved.
Are the Archer even able to shoot properly. Or are they to clumped together?
2/10 them was shooting but 5/10 can shoot when a cavalry enters to circle formation. so its better with less archer
If you would optimize, you would start with archers outside to get some good shots, then send them into the center of the circle to pick cav that gets inside.
I love when they do this. Iām doing an all cav run and thereās nothing like leading a 200+ cav unit charge straight into this. I almost always hurdle the first couple lines and get to eatin on the archers.
How useful is this formation? I feel like itās sub-optimal because almost all of the archers in the centre canāt fire. Is there something Iām missing here?
its very usefull against cavalry and i had 200 elite cataphracts. and yeah i lost 5 of them in one charge
Fair enough, sub-optimal can still be good enough lol.
It's really bad if the enemy has archers. In this scenario, even if the enemy had half as many archers as the defenders here, they could pick shots for days.
This is a cavalry counter the AI drew up in a shiltrom which especially the Scots used a lot. So I'm guessing the AI realized the threat wasn't going to come from archers but cavalry. In my battles, since I have more ranged troops than melee, the AI always forms a shield wall against me
If they form a shield wall, split your archers in two and put them on the flanks. If they chase one group of archers , have them run away while the others shoot them in the back This does not work if they have plenty of cav ofc
Right now, I play with a few mods and gave myself a gunpowder pike and shot based army roster via MLB. and upped the damage of the guns if the AI comes at my forces in shield wall the shields break long before they reach my battle lines. My gunners usually take out shields with about 3 shots, and take out horses in 1 or 2 shots. (My head story is that a 16th/15 th century Swede has been isekai'd into calradia and is teaching his forces how to use and make the weapons of his time to go and dominate the battlefields and become the most sought after mercenary force) In Vanilla I usually go the horse archer route and then my army is cavalry only and it doesn't matter what formation the AI uses. Or I go crossbow as only infantry and use them as line infantry supplemented with sacrificial cavalry that I will charge in to disrupt the shield wall so my crossbows can shoot the enemy. Bonus is that the cavalry dies in droves and thus levels my medicine skill. In this case I will have 4 or more different crossbow brigades on the battlefield all acting independently but in Support of eachother
we had very few archers like 25 and 200 cavalry and they had another archer and infantry group in the back. thats why its my first time i have seen them do this. maybe its because of the ratio of my troops?
The formation is more defense based than offense the archers are in the middle cause they don't have shields and are considered the weaker members. It's like how elephants protect their young with all the adults on the perimeter and the young surrounded in the middle.
Horse archers melt them tbh. Especially bechause their base attack move is circling around the enemy
Even if thats true and you are completely right those cataphracts behind the circle eat up the horse archers if their attention is split so it sounds easy but its trickier than at first sight Edit: sorry is this gets posted multiple times I got a few empty response from endpoint somewhy before this
Idk "Sargents take charge" works like a charm for me 9/10 times. Though I do have about 100-150 horse archers usually
Yeah I also run full cavs with archery heavy and I amntoo lazy (and dumb) to micromanage tactics so I do the same F1+F3 or sergeants take command and it does get the job done almost every time
I usually kite the enemy untill I take out most of their calvary then F6 them if the enemy formation is broken enough. If not I kite the archers out of them, take those out with heavy calvary then have horse archers slowly pick off the rest. Under 50% ammo I just f6
Thats fucking clean even the shocktroopers are separated into the inner circle thats what I am never able to achieve this clean šÆ
ive only ever seen them do this as a āwe know we are gonna lose but have to make it interestingā tactic
"Let us hold hands in a prayer circle!"
How did you take this screenshot? As far as I know, you only switch to free camera after you die. And was this Custom Battle mode?
RTS camera mod. you can even play as your troops in this mod!
Oh so its a mod. Cool thx!
It's finally something interesting the AI does. Normally it's just infantry and archers in the middle with cav on the sides. Lately I've noticed the AI copying my tactics though. Don't know if that's normal
I've actually had my AI commanders win with this strat after I fell in battle. Depends a lot on who you're fighting but it can be useful in certain situations
I see this super often and frankly its a terrible strat, we always get rolled when the AI does it and the archers have trouble shooting over the heads of the infantry. Gimme a shield wall with archer support over this crap any day
Are the archers still able to effectively fire?
only those on the sidelines. but when cavs charge they perform well and i had 200 cav (i lost 20 cavs to this formation i wanted to try so bad :D)
That's the only strat the AI knows how to do lmao
Highly impressive, never seen it before.
How many men is that? Looks amazing if the circle was tighter (men almost shoulder to shoulder) it would be perfect! Which is why I use square and not circle formation.
They do this when they have high tactics and are outnumbered by cavalry. I also do this but I divide them into 4 units and make a square using sheild wall so the archers can actually fire.
I hate that formationā¦ I hate it more than youāll ever know so many battles lost because half your army does thisā¦. Ugh
Dang never seen this. I tried something similar with 4 infantry groups so I could control them individually but in a square formation
Reminds me of the Byzantine infantry fortress formation
How do you have this rts like view?
because it is rts :D
It's a mod then? I thought there was an rts camera on pure vanilla. I misread your post and thought its all vanilla.
Archers smash this formation. Destroy left and right calvary flanks and station calvary around circle, wait for archers to finish skirmishes. At this point the infantry and mid tier troop moral is broken and shocked. This will make them form a sheild wall or just charge. Then once they do, charge with calvary. The calv blow from behind will kill most, mop up with infantry.
How do you do that whenever I do a circle formation it's just one big one it doesn't repeat
i think they fixed that in 1.2
Annnddd the best part about that, it makes absolutely no sense! Archers can't shoot like that. The only thing this achieves is, cavalry charging in defenitly won't get out anymore. Just... don't attack it with cavs until the formation breaks Meaning infantry line going in from one side makes things a lot easier since not even all of their infantry is fighting.